Queen's University Belfast - Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
MSc in Actuarial Science
Belfast, United Kingdom
MSc
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2027
TUITION FEES
GBP 25,800 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, England £ 8,800 I Scotland or Wales: £9,250 | EU Other and International: £25,800
Key Summary
About: The full-time MSc in Actuarial Science at Queen’s University Belfast targets graduates with quantitative bachelors. It covers actuarial mathematics, statistics, economics and finance and lets students accrue up to six exemptions from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). You’ll learn from qualified FIA actuaries and attend industry guest lectures.
Career Outcomes: The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 20% employment growth (2018–28) for actuaries. Graduates typically work in insurance and financial services. You could become an actuary, pricing analyst, risk analyst, consultant, data scientist or risk manager, or join Insurtech and analytics teams using modeling, statistics and programming skills.
The MSc Actuarial Science is a full-time postgraduate programme aimed primarily at students with undergraduate degrees from quantitative disciplines such as maths, statistics, finance or any other programme with a high degree of mathematical content.
The programme will encompass new and existing modules across the areas of actuarial mathematics, statistics, economics and finance to provide graduates with the knowledge and skills to pursue a career as an actuary. This programme will provide students who have not undertaken an undergraduate Actuarial Science degree with the opportunity to accrue exemptions from six of the earlier IFoA professional exams (CM1-2, CB1-2 and CS1-2) in addition to undertaking postgraduate study.
Actuarial Science highlights
Professional Accreditations
Subject to academic performance, students can gain up to six exemptions from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) professional exams.
Industry Links
The Society of Northern Ireland Actuaries (SoNIA) is a regional society for local actuaries. It aims to offer a forum for Northern Ireland-based actuaries and student actuaries to share opinions on actuarial topics, providing a networking opportunity. Lecturers also bring in guest lecturers from industry (e.g. actuaries working in different practice areas) to speak to students during their courses.
Internationally Renowned Experts
There are four fully qualified FIA actuaries in the faculty, with extensive industry experience. You will be taught by these qualified actuaries as well as academics, many of whom also have industry experience in various fields such as banking and insurance.
Students have the opportunity to engage with industry professionals who regularly deliver guest lectures.
Student Experience
The Student Managed Fund gives students the opportunity to manage a real money portfolio where they do the research and decide on their investment strategy.
Some of our classes are supported by DataCamp, an intuitive learning platform for data science and analytics. DataCamp allows our students to build their data science skills anytime, anywhere and become an experts in R, Python, SQL, and more.
Year 1
Core Modules
- Corporate Finance
- Actuarial Mathematics 2
- Actuarial Mathematics 1
- Computational Methods in Finance
- Economics
- Applied Research Project
- Statistics for Insurance
- Actuarial Modelling
- Actuarial Statistics
Queen’s University Belfast is ranked 174th in the QS World University Rankings 2027
We offer prestigious, competitive scholarships of up to 50% off tuition fees to new international students. You must have an offer to study a full-time course with us in 2024 to apply for a scholarship.
Employment after the Course
Actuaries are constantly in demand, and their skills are continually included in highly skilled occupation listings and skills in demand listings. The Bureau of Labour Statistics projects that the employment of actuaries is expected to increase by 20% between 2018 and 2028, which is deemed to be faster than other occupations.
Actuaries primarily work in insurance and financial services, which are heavily regulated and require a number of statutory disclosures. The majority of graduates from the BSc Actuarial Science and Risk Management program obtain employment in the Republic of Ireland and, in particular, Dublin. Dublin has seen an influx of financial services companies either entering the market for the first time or increasing their footprint in Ireland as a result of the United Kingdom’s impending withdrawal from the European Union. Another primary driver for the demand for actuaries has been changed in legislation. A recent example is the implementation of Solvency II for the insurance industry, which caused a spike in demand for actuaries and enabled actuaries to develop new transferable skills. Furthermore, the International Accounting Standards Board has published a new accounting standard for insurance contracts.
Finally, with the growth in data science and Insurtech, new, more technology-based opportunities are available for actuaries. Rather than automation being a threat to actuaries, these new tools will enable actuaries to help their clients make better decisions, which contributes to the positive outlook for actuaries in the long term.